Viracocha Patera
Encyclopedia
Viracocha Patera is a patera, or a complex crater with scalloped edges, on Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

's moon Io
Io (moon)
Io ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter and, with a diameter of , the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System. It was named after the mythological character of Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of the lovers of Zeus....

. It is about 59 kilometers in diameter and is located at 61.77°S 280.09°W. It is named after the Qechua sun god Viracocha
Viracocha
Viracocha is the great creator god in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Full name and some spelling alternatives are Apu Qun Tiqsi Wiraqutra and Con-Tici Viracocha...

. The name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union
International Astronomical Union
The International Astronomical Union IAU is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy...

 in 1979. Viracocha Patera is a Voyager spacecraft
Voyager program
The Voyager program is a U.S program that launched two unmanned space missions, scientific probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s...

-detected hot spot
Hotspot (geology)
The places known as hotspots or hot spots in geology are volcanic regions thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the mantle elsewhere. They may be on, near to, or far from tectonic plate boundaries. There are two hypotheses to explain them...

. To Viracocha Patera's east-northeast is Mithra Patera
Mithra Patera
Mithra Patera is a patera, or a complex crater with scalloped edges, on Jupiter's moon Io. It is about 34 kilometers in diameter and is located at . It is named after the Persian god of light, Mithra. Its name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1985. To the north is Silpian...

, and to the northeast is the mountain Silpium Mons
Silpium Mons
Silpium Mons is a mountain on Jupiter's moon Io. It is 5.6 kilometers in height, 113 kilometers in length, and 79.7 kilometers in width. It covers an area of 7073 km2. It is a striated ridge, meaning it is an elevated structure dominated by one or more prominent linear or arcurate rises. It is...

.
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